Jurassic Park II (Topps)
Jurassic Park II is the second issue of the Topps Jurassic Park series. Story Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are amazed as they're confronted by a living Brachiosaurus upon arriving on Isla Nublar. They're overwhelmed. John Hammond assures them the animal is real and asks if they want to pet it. An equally astounded Ian Malcolm exclaims, "Hammond, you did it! You crazy son of a bitch! You did it!" Hammond retorts he never doubted himself: "Skepticism is your department." The Brachiosaurs make Donald Gennaro nervous, but he is assured they're herbivores. "They eat plants, not lawyers," Hammond jokes. "But if we're lucky, it could still step on you." Grant and Ellie continue gushing over the dinosaurs and ask who else knows about them. Hammond explains that there are a few dozen consultants who know, but he has kept them out of the loop. Grant and Ellie enthuse about rewriting everything palentologists know about dinosaurs, insisting the Brachiosaur they're observing is "a knockout punch for warmbloodedness." In particular, they wish a colleague of theirs, Aaron Mitchell, were there to see the animal for himself so he could see he was wrong in thinking dinosaurs were coldblooded. During their boundlessly enthusiastic discussion, Grant inquires how fast the dinosaurs are, and Hammond responds that their Tyrannosaurus rex runs thirty-two miles an hour. The paleontologists are amazed that Hammond has a T. rex and demand to see it. Hammond laughs and tells them to calm down, there'll be plenty of time to see all of the dinosaurs later that afternoon. "How'd you do it?" asks Grant. "Come on. I'll show you," replies Hammond. As the group returns to their vehicles, Gennaro, having overcome his nervousness in the dinosaurs' presence, becomes enthusiastic as well, insisting Jurassic Park is going to make a fortune. Malcolm is the odd man out and doesn't join the others in the celebratory gushing, continuing to call Hammond crazy. Hammond takes them to visitor's center, where he shows the group a film narrated by a cartoon character named Mr. DNA. From this, they learn that InGen has obtained dinosaur DNA from blood found in the bellies of mosquitoes who become trapped in tree sap after drinking the dinosaurs' blood, utilizing the DNA of frogs to fill gaps in the incomplete genetic code. The theater that the group is sitting in is on a rotating platform that revolves, allowing them to look into various rooms, including a high-tech laboratory where scientists are placing the embryos they've created using their cloning process into what are (according to Mr. DNA, whose narration of the tour continues unabated) unfertilized ostrich and emu eggs. Grant wants to see inside the lab, particularly the eggs. He, Ellie and Malcolm exit the theater in the middle of the presentation, and go into the lab. A scientist attempts to stop them, but is told by one of his colleagues that it's okay, and he backs off. Hammond and Gennaro enter after them, and the visitors are introduced to Jurassic Park's chief scientist, Henry Wu. He shows them a batch of eggs that are ready to hatch, and one disgorges a baby dinosaur, which, to Grant's dismay, Wu identifies as a Velociraptor. "Isn't she the most beautiful thing you ever saw?" Wu says of the hatchling. When Hammond mentions he has been present for the birth of every dinosaur on the island, a skeptical Malcolm insists that can't be possible. How, he asks, can he know when they're born out in the wild and be there every time. Wu explains that the dinosaurs can't breed because they're all the same gender, female. Malcolm is astonished and simply grunts in response. Hammond demands to know what his problem is, whereupon Malcolm explains: "The kind of control you're attempting is flatly impossible. If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. It breaks free, perhaps even dangerously." A bewildered Hammond asks him if he honestly thinks dinosaurs of a single gender will all breed with one another, but Malcolm corrects him: he never claimed that, specifically; merely that "I'm simply saying that life finds a way." Grant, still bothered by the presence of Velociraptors, asks to be shown where the adults are kept, and Hammond takes the group to the raptor pen where a cow is lowered in by a crane and eaten by the dinosaurs, who the humans can't see because they're concealed by thick foliage. A tall man in a wide-brimmed hat, who Hammond introduces as game warden Robert Muldoon, approaches and offers his own opinion on the raptors: "They should all be destroyed!" After a discussion about the extreme intelligence of the raptors, of which the park has three, not including the baby who just hatched, the group retires to the dining room in the visitor's center where they engage in heated discussion about the ethics of the park. Differences from the Movie *''Parasaurolophus'' or any other hadrosaur is not present with the Brachiosaurs whatsoever. This appears to be intentional as the section "Exploring Jurassic Park Part 2" featured at the back of the comic and the ''Jurassic Park Topps'' card for Parasaurolophus states that it was cut from Jurassic ParkJurassic Park II: "The Parasaurolophus was later removed from the story, while younger incarnations of Triceratops and Raptors were added."Jurassic Park Topps trading cards #83 - Parasaurolophus Notes and references 2